¶ Making Your Resume Stand Out
So you're looking for a new job and you have to update your resume . How do you make your resume stick out from that big pile of other resumes ? That's the subject for today's show . Welcome to the show , where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers , apprentices , project managers , estimators , ict personnel and even customers .
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Right now we seem to be a lot of people looking for jobs , looking to upgrade their jobs for various reasons or move to different companies , and one of the processes that you got to go through is you got to dust off the old resume . Okay , and if you , like me , i've probably I've used the same format resume for oh , i don't know 40 plus years .
The only thing I do when I go to apply for a new job is I just put in the new , the new company and the new duties that I did there . But you know what Resumes have changed and you really need to catch the eye of the person who's filtering out that huge stack of resumes . So how do you make your resume stick out from the others ?
Can I use different color fonts ? What if I put my picture in there ? What if I make it really fancy and graphical ? That'll grab the attention . These are all kinds of things that people think about , but you know , it's not about what you think , it's about what that hiring manager or the HR person who's screening them thinks .
Now , as I mentioned , my resume is kind of old and while I consider myself a , i can wax poetic about low voltage things installation design , certification I can't talk very intelligently about resumes . You know me , i go searching for experts .
So I got on the old Lincoln machine and I typed in professional resume writers and the very top one that came on my list was Linda Burke , and I asked her would she be on the show ? and she said yes , yes , linda , how you doing today ?
I am good . Thank you so much for having me on the show .
What a great intro , not a problem . So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are , so the audience kind of knows your background ?
Okay , so I , as Chuck mentioned Linda Burke from , actually my firm is called Taylor Performance Solutions and I've been a resume writer since 1995 , where I was certified when I was with Chase Manhattan Bank and continued writing resumes since then , and I'm certified with the professional association of resume writers and career coaches as a certified professional resume
writer and I just want to start by saying I love doing resumes and I work with all different industries , people levels . I get inquiries from parents saying my child's graduating from college please get them out of the house , get them a job .
All the way to , you know senior executives , ceos , coos who want to make a transition , and I love doing that work and one of the things I think helps me with the resumes is for 30 years I've also been in corporate training and development and have worked with all different industries and people , so I understand from both perspectives .
You know what it's like to work in those industries and then also what the hiring managers are looking for . So it has been very busy since 2020 , which you know it's . It was a hard time , but I was just really happy to be able to help people .
¶ Resume Writing and Standing Out
I would be willing to bet that you're in a minority , because everybody that I've ever talked to when it comes about the subject of resumes hates writing resumes , and I think maybe that's because maybe when we're growing up it seems kind of self-serving or boisterous when you're writing a resume .
I think it's maybe that's part of why people don't like writing resumes . Would you concur with that , or do you think there's a different reason that causes that ?
Yes , well , it's . People don't like writing their own resumes , right . So number one , that you can do a great job . But then when it's time for you to articulate it and put it on paper , you don't have to do it .
Part of it is , as we grow up , you know , we're taught don't brag , don't be a braggart , and one of the first things I'll tell my clients is you're not bragging . If you did it , it's not bragging . This is what you did , this is what you accomplished , and we need to be able to demonstrate that to the people that are potentially hiring you .
And that's usually what's missing when I see people's first drafts come in not a real good articulation of that , of those accomplishments .
So I do agree , so I got ten questions that were submitted to you by audience members . Before I get to that , though , you did bring up a good point that I want to maybe touch base on . You said . You said it's not bragging if you did it .
Right now , you and I both know it's not me , it's not you , but we probably know of people who've put things on their resume that they did not do right . Right . That's probably not good advice , is it ?
no , no , so verifiable , right , if you , whatever you put on that resume you need to be able to talk to in an interview . And you know , as resume writers we're taking the word of our clients that they actually did what they said they did .
So I usually , if I have a sense that there is a little bit of embellishment that may be , you know , too far I usually get in . Yeah , i have phone calls and zoom meetings with my clients . It's not just email so I'll say tell me about that , tell me more about that . You know I want to know if it is in case verifiable . It's .
You know it's up to them .
If , obviously , if they want to put something on there that they didn't do , but if they can't talk to it shouldn't be on there right and and I do see you know there's a lot of stuff on LinkedIn you have to customize your resume to different jobs and and we can talk about that later and what I actually saw once was somebody just copied a job description
from a posting and put that on their resume word for word word for word oh , that's not good , no , that's not good it's not good and and in fact , on if I do a government resumes , you know they have different formats and on the government resume it actually says now on the front page of the website , which I think is awesome please do not just copy and
paste this job description into your resume and I'm good for you , so Keep it simple . Yes , yes .
Yeah , don't , don't lie on the resume and don't lie on the job description , right , right . It's pretty bad when you have to put that on a website to tell people who are applying to work for you .
They must have seen that constantly . That's the first time in since the internet , when I've been working on resumes , that I saw that on the on the front page Right .
So let's dive into these 10 questions . You ready ? Yep , okay . So this first question comes from somebody who I know that this person's an audience member and they've interacted with me before . I don't know them personally , but I know of them because they're we're connected on LinkedIn and a couple of the social media platform . They're a young person .
They're like 21 , 20 , 22 , kind of a young person , and so their question was what is the purpose of a resume ? Why can't my work speak for itself ?
Okay , And , and you know what , that's a good question When we look at it from the perspective of a hiring manager . Right , the resume should be telling that hiring manager very quickly whether or not you have the experience , qualifications to first do the job that you're applying for , and then more about how you do your job .
So in your industry , if verification of a work product is with pictures or I don't know if you have any other technical specs or anything like that that you would be showing that can stand for itself in the actual interview .
The hiring managers , as you mentioned before , are going through piles of resumes And if they don't know your industry inside and out like you do , that picture will be meaningless And you actually could lose an opportunity . So the resume is that written description of who you are , what you've done , how you've done it and the skills that you've used to get there .
That's a great answer .
And you know , when I worked for a major company so we had an HR lady whenever we had a position she would filter out all the resumes and then she would narrow down to a manageable number of candidates , right , sometimes it was . It depends on the pool , right , and there might have been two candidates , might have been five candidates , whatever .
But I know she started off with a stack I mean a stack of 100 , 200 resumes And when you're looking through that many resumes you kind of miss the details . You're kind of really looking at you know how's it ? for me It's as easy to read . How can I quickly scan this and understand ? They say do the same thing with emails . Don't write big long paragraphs .
Get to the point quickly . If you have to justify , do that after the point . Right , and that's what the HR manager is doing . And let me say I know this because I'd asked her one day while we were doing some things , and I said so how many people do we have prior for this job ? She said oh , 160 .
I'm like right , can you imagine ? can you imagine just trying to read 160 resumes ?
Ask my wife . I don't even read a Facebook post that's longer than three sentences . She sees me pull up something's got a long paragraph She'll look at , you're not gonna read that .
You get blurry , you get bleary eyed .
I've had some .
I've had some resumes come in for rewrites that Somebody at some point was told the resume can be no longer than one page And somebody squeezed 20 years of experience on this one page in the smallest font possible , with the smallest margin , and and and . And . I said right now why you're not getting any of these number that we can read .
It is going to read this right and plus get rid of that Myth that it has to be one page .
That's . That's . That's another question coming up here . So , right , right , so , to kind of tie in with that , that huge stack of Resumes that that poor HR person's got a filter through . So this question is how can I make my resume stand out to the employers From all the other resumes submitted ? What is the ideal length for resume ?
Okay , good , so there's a few answers to that . The first way to make it stand out on , can I , can I talk about what not to do ? sure , sure , not putting it on pink paper , not , or purple , or whatever your favorite color is That . I mean , this is going .
You know , years and years ago You bought the fancy resume paper because you only handed it out and there was a time where they said , put it on colored paper , it will stand out . So We're not going to do that . We're not going to put a whole lot of fancy fonts and colors . That's not going to grab their attention . What , what's most important ?
So there's two parts . How do we make it stand out ? What's the proper length of the resume ? No , so we look at the top one third of the first page of the resume as the most critical real estate on your resume . Okay , going back to your HR manager , who had a hundred and sixty resumes to look at , they will look at and you'll see different research .
I seven seconds , ten seconds , fifteen seconds , whatever it is . So they're scanning The top third of that resume . I want to see right away Who is this person . What have they done ? Do they have the skills that the hiring manager asked me for where they currently working , and then I'm going to decide Am I going to read the rest of that resume got you ?
so That's critical , and I've seen a lot of people lose space there because their header is Six , you know , six lines or whatever , and no , this , this is critical . I need your name , your contact information and then Tell me really quick who you are . And now for the length of the resume .
You know there's general guidelines around it less than ten years , a page Maybe , or page and a half . Also , depending on the industry , about 20 years of experience , you can go to two pages . There are times when a third page is okay .
I've done a lot of IT resumes and that third page will be their Certifications , their training , the different systems that they , that they know and understand . So it's the third page , but it's not really part of the resume , right , but it's it's . It's a good placeholder .
People in medical professions , you know , sometimes they have all their certifications on on the third page . So you know , a recent graduate , one page , a , you know , professional that's been promoted throughout the years , change careers , 15 to 20 years .
It's two pages and Then again , with the formatting There , there's a different way to lay it out for each one , but You know , we can go over that in a minute as well
¶ Resume Writing Tips and Strategies
.
I didn't realize , as you were talking about how the HR person only scans the top 30 the page . That's what I'm doing with those Facebook articles . I read the first two or three cents . Yeah , this doesn't interest me , right ?
Right , you want to encourage them to continue reading . Right , and part of that as well is there cannot . Well , there should be any throughout the whole document . But no grammatical errors , no misspellings . Yeah no structural , you know , set in structure issues right , it has to be clean , easy to read and Encouraging .
You know , and even as a hiring manager , because I've been running my own business for 20 years as a hiring manager You know I want to see right away you know if I'm looking for a designer or a facilitator , I want to see right away . Do you have the experience ? don't make me do too much work to figure it out .
Right , exactly , and you know when you mentioned about that third page , our industry is notorious for certifications . I mean it because we have industry certifications . There's manufacturer certifications .
I did a Interview the guy one time for position that I had and he'd worked for my belt I And he literally had two full pages of certifications that he had from class that he'd taken over the time he's been there with it . So make sure I understand when you talk about that third page . That third page is kind of like an appendix .
Yes , it doesn't make it stand by itself with just the first two pages . Yes , Okay .
So if you can , you know again , it's a client specific response , but if you can those certifications , i will try to put them on the bottom of the second page If possible , but sometimes it's just not .
And I also talked to my client to find out which certifications are critical for the job that you're looking for , because maybe you just list those on your resume And then , if needed , you have these additional certifications .
So let's look at the job posting And that's one way that you can align to the job posting is pick and choose those certifications to include . I've worked with IT like transformational IT folks , senior level . Now they've got certifications on things that don't exist anymore .
Right , exactly .
Right . So we don't need those , and especially if they were 25 years ago . So let's look at what's critical to this posting .
So let me ask you this . So if the job description says and you'll find this a lot in our industry if the job description says you know , rcd , rcd , that's a major certification , for RCD is a must , right ? Should that really be at the bottom of the second page ?
No , I would put that in the summary statement . You know , at the top of the resume we've got your contact information and then it should be a headline . I usually recommend not to make your headline professional summary , Like that says nothing . But if your headline is giving me some job titles , Project manager slash RCD , with 20 years experience .
Yes , so that right . So I would get an M right up top in the summary and or maybe in the headline RCD certified , you know if that's a must , and then when you have your certifications , i would still put it there .
Because , based on what you just said , if I don't get that , that , that that hard requirement in that first third , i might be thrown to the side , even though I am . I am certified .
Right , and I also have , after your summary , which really is a very short you know , tell me about yourself underneath that generally . And then it's not always 100% . It depends on the experience . We're listing your key competencies and skills , so right in there you can put our you know RCD .
Whatever the certification is Right Because you do want it in that top third , if it says it's a must , For general guideline for this summary statement two sentences , five sentences . You know , five , five lines works for some clients , three lines for some clients . It really does .
It has to be supported by your experience And you want to make sure that you're describing your value again as a line to these jobs that you're applying for . Gotcha I I usually don't take a hard or make a hard decision on okay , this is what you're doing , okay , this is what it needs to be . Like I'm working on one right now and it came into me .
Came into me It was . It was like three paragraphs . Okay , that's too long . Now , now I'm working on it and it's still too long . But what I'm looking for ?
opportunities to at least say what my clients trying to say in the beginning , in other places , in the beginning of the resume , you know , but that that summary statement should really capture the attention .
Yeah , i took a class in college and it was I don't remember the title of the class , but it was . It was a way to make your , your writing , more impactful , and so they had . And when you're in college you know you're turning out papers .
It's usually well , you got to write 1500 words on blah , blah , blah , and what happens is it gets you into putting in a lot of filler words and stuff that you don't need Right .
So the class was he made us write a 1500 word paper on something He graded that the next week we had to write , we had to have , we had to have right , take that 1500 page word and take it down to a thousand words , love it . And then the next one , we had to take it down to 500 words , love it .
And I tell you what it makes you realize there's a lot of stuff in here that I could say Without having to say four sentences to say it exactly .
You know , and that's what's hardest for people to do on their own , and That's and that's why there is this field of professional resume writers right , because we can look at it , you know , from a different perspective and figure out Okay , what is the main message of trying to get across and how do we communicate that in the most concise , direct way possible ?
Excellent , excellent . So the the next question is and you kind of hit on this a little bit I have 25 years of experience . I don't think I can get it to just two pages .
Help sure can . You absolutely can . I've done 30 years of experience into . But , but let me back up 20 years is generally what you want to show on your resume , okay . So if you have your resume goes back 20 years , you have 25 or 30 that can go on your LinkedIn Okay .
But for your resume , especially in your industry or any industry is related to technology in any way 25 years ago things were done very differently , right ? I'm most interested in what's most relevant today . So When you say you can't get 25 years of experience in , not you , but the person asking the person .
No , no , no . You make a great point . You make an absolute great point . I never thought about that before . If I , I'm not looking for a job . I love the company .
I work .
if I were to be looking for a job , I've got four decades of experience . Well , I'm sorry , we're not doing dual RG69 , or dual G62 coax anymore , Right , Exactly , We're not doing type one , type three . That's irrelevant experience .
So if I were to write a resume and again , because I know some people from my company listen to this podcast I'm not looking for a job . I should only list the past 20 years . But then if somebody wants to know my full length , we can dive in that in the interview or they can look at my LinkedIn profile .
Yes , and again , if I chance , i'll reference a government resumes again . The government wants to know everything you've done since you've graduated high school pretty much Right . So save that somewhere , don't throw it out At some point you might need that . But yeah , what you did 25 years ago again , anybody I'm working with that's related all to technology .
We don't need that . Yeah , it's not going to be relevant .
And I was thinking , the only job description I can think of that would probably I mean that wouldn't be affected by this 20 , is carpet layers , Because the way they laid carpet 40 years ago is the same way they're laying it today . Right , Okay ?
And so if they are , let's say that they do have 30 years of experience doing that . You don't need to detail everything you did in that job 30 years ago , right , you could just put in your summary statement with over 20 years experience with carpet laying , and here's where I did it And here's why I got .
Here's all the positive feedback I got about it , or here's why I was able to continue in this field for so long .
Excellent . Next question I've only had one job since high school , but I want to break into low voltage . What should I include in my resume if I have limited work experience for the job I'm trying to get ?
So do you know , for example , if somebody's trying to break into low voltage , what would they be currently doing now ?
They come from all different types of fields . I've had people come from law enforcement . I've had people come from electricians to all the different trades , even sales .
OK , so a couple of things for that . If I put on my management consultant hat where I'm working with individuals , we'll tell individuals look for opportunities in your current job to do things that are similar to the job that you want to do Ask for extra work or get on a project team or do something .
So first we're going to research what's required of this person in this low voltage position . Hey , is there anything in my current job that I do that's similar And when you look at writing your resume and we're not lying . But we're going to take what we're doing and maybe use some terminology that aligns to this position .
I would probably also want to emphasize if there are examples that this person has of how they've learned quickly , how they've transitioned in previous jobs , because that's what the hiring manager said oh , there's no low voltage experience here , but this person has done this or has shown this , so that can help .
Also , joining organizations looking for other avenues to add to your resume Active member not just joined up , but sat on the board or helped with this project team in this area .
Well , that's great advice . So , for example , if somebody was an HVAC technician heating , ventilation and air conditioning technician there is some overlay there . They do some minor low voltage stuff , but not what we do .
But they could say things like I've attended and passed OSHA 10 certifications , I'm familiar with appropriate PPE for construction sites and stuff like that . That kind of does be good things right .
Yes , nice .
¶ Improving Your Telecommunications Career
And also there's probably a reason somebody wants to get into that field . So , thinking about what that reason is , what do you want to do differently ? OK , now how do I show that I've started to do that on my resume ? Great .
This is an interesting conversation . Make sure you stay tuned to next week for the next five questions .
That's it for this episode of today's podcast . We hope you were able to learn something . Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content . Also , leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications . And until next time , be safe .